Guardians Of The Galaxy‘s Dave Bautista will reunite with his Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve for the latter’s upcoming version of Frank Herbert’s Dune, one of the biggest SF book series that has previously been a feature film from David Lynch and a Syfy (then Sci-Fi Channel) mini-series. Bautista’s role is not currently known. [Update: We now know he will play “The Beast” Rabban – as if there was any question…]

He will join Timothée Chalamet (Lady Bird), who will play hero Paul Atreides, and Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible – Fallout), who will play Lady Jessica.

The David Lynch film was a visual spectacle but a box office failure, with Lynch himself distancing himself claiming there was too much interference from the producers and financiers, and in some cuts the director was credited as “Alan Smithee”, a code name for a disavowed credit. The mini-series proved more successful, spawning a sequel series for Children of Dune, both of which were some of the highest rated programming on the network at the time.